Larry of the Lawn

Fair warning, a man with 3 corners showing is up for anything

I don't know if it's too recent for "history" but I've been re-reading Pynchon's The Bleeding Edge and it's a pretty remarkable timepiece for the cultural moments immediately preceding 9/11. The characterization of the internet at the time and American urban life of that era is portrayed accurately, hilariously, and tragically all at once. It was published in 2013 or 14, so clearly has the benefit of hindsight, but even ten/20 years later it doesn't feel aged or off-base. I'm honestly surprised we haven't seen more examination of 9/11 and the fallout from it in fiction and art in general.

This is too easily just imitated. I'd lean more toward trying to have it create original metaphor or simile that make both sense and are original, or to compose original jokes or explain to me why a particular joke funny.

Just want to chime in and say that my views on trans people changed specifically because of this board 10-12 years ago. I hadn't known any trans individuals, and I'd say my views before then were at best transphobic and at worst casually hateful. I'm grateful for the opportunity to have reconsidered my thoughts. I've since had a close friend transition and I am periodically horrified to think how that would have gone a decade earlier. Instead I was able to be supportive. I've also had a family member come out as non-binary a few years ago and again, I'm very thankful that they didn't have to experience any more discomfort from people they love than they did. So thank you, board, people can and do change their views, and I'd guess it happens more than is apparent, especially if you're using online discussions as the sample, where naturally the most entrenched and intransigent positions are going to be the loudest.

There are also other tick borne illnesses like anaplasmosis and erlichiosis (sp), of the bite can become infected with incidental bacteria. I fucking hate ticks. Unusually get a dozen or so bitten into me per year. This spring I've only had one so far. Hoping for a mild year, but this winter was mild so probably going to be a wee bit bitey around here.

I sincerely wish that his medical issues disappear, one way or another.

For sure. It was this part you quoted (and the distinction you've made above) that led me to say "maybe a Luddite" and to recommend this. I am less concerned with technology itself than about using it responsibly to improve the world rather than to create more or new or exciting types of suffering because of profit.

Not enough apparently, when he's taking more votes from Trump than Biden.

This essay should be required reading on the broad topic of the ethics of technology, automation, and how we think about reactions to it, and is rather prescient for being written 40 years ago, particularly the conclusion: Is it ok to be a Luddite?

Nope. I found the recent solar eclipse to be awesome in the literal sense of the word. My dad is pleased emotionally watching baseball. Neither of these things are art. Art is more than just something that produces an emotional response. This premise here, that the rest of your post is based on, simply isn't true. I'm not going to argue that art requires the creator to have an intentional message, or that it be understandable. But I think (so this is just my opinion) that one of the differences between art and something else, is that art requires an intention to create on the part of the person doing it. I'd argue that not all photographs are art. Not all books are either. The artist is in some way marking the art by taking something that is inside themself and putting it outside into the world. Art predates written language. We've found bone flutes over 100,000 years old. There is an element of self-expression in art that makes it what it is. You could argue that we're all just meat robots and that anything we do is a byproduct of our programming and our experience at that specific moment of action, that there is no such thing as originality, that everything created is simply a reassembly of things that came before. As a person and maybe a Luddite, I disagree. AI-created stuff isn't art. It might be a really good facsimile thereof, but we're going to need a new word for it. It's not the same thing when the creator is removed. I think we might already be at a point with graphics and music where we can't necessarily discern if something is AI generated or not, where we can't actually tell if it's art or not. I can't tell the difference between a fake diamond and a diamond simply by looking at them. It doesn't mean they're the same thing.

Who packs their phone? It's a fucking prosthesis at this point.

Well good thing I didn't do that then, huh? You're the one that said "inevitable" scolding me for "the language of inevitability" and likening protests to a "natural disaster" (which I didn't do, by the way!) I guess I missed the part where I said "pick whatever you think is the worst, most toxic part about protesting, and let it be known to all the land, that's the part I fucking support!".

Sure, some protests are strategic and have planning. My "pragmatic" comment was directed at people who seem to think that there is some electoral or specific public policy that's going to change immediately. I doubt most protestors think that's going to happen. My commentary was directed at people who seem baffled or confused as to why people would be out there protesting. I am amused that people are confused by this. I stand by my statement that protests are likely to happen when conventional or pragmatic solutions fail or are ignored. For what it's worth I've spent quite a bit of time on the pavement. I went to college in DC immediately after 9/11 and was out in front of the Whitehouse at least once a week for a couple hours for a couple years.

Yeah let's not like protests to natural disasters or libraries or cupcakes or sea monsters, I am 100% on board with that.

I tired this 20 years ago and now there's just a lousy, moldy, rat-bitten painting of me in the attic and I'm turning gray and wrinkly lol.